BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – FOLLOWING Monday’s (Nov. 3) not guilty verdict of the two men who were charged with the 2005 murder of popular businessman Hubert Phipps, one of his sons, Andre ‘Magic Man’ Phipps, is of the view that the prosecutor did not do enough to win the case despite forensic evidence.
“Pertaining to the outcome of the case, I was hoping for a guilty verdict because they say that it was DNA that actually picked these guys up, and usually nobody beats DNA. I went to court on several occasions to listen to the case and there were some parts where I felt that these guys might get off because I don’t think that the prosecutor was asking the right questions,” Andre opined.
The popular radio personality told SKNVibes because of the fact that agents of the Federal Investigation Bureau were in St. Kitts to talk at the trial about the fibre found in the home of one of the accused, which matched those that were in his father’s house, he had strongly believed that one or both of them would have been found guilty.
“But I do not know why these guys got off,” he exclaimed.
Andre said that on receipt of the findings he did not speak to any of his family members about it because he was flabbergasted.
“I have not spoken to anybody in the family about it because I was shocked when I got the news Monday morning while getting ready to attend the Court. Sergeant Drew had called and told me don’t bother to come because the judge asked the jury to return with a not guilty verdict because they didn’t have enough evidence.”
He declared that the verdict meant to him that the murderer is still walking around, if not already killed.
“But these guys who got off, are they the murderers? Is it that the prosecutor did not prepare a good case why these guys end up walking?” he questioned, adding, “I thought that they really had these guys…I thought they would have come back with a guilty verdict.”
Andre strongly believes that one of the reasons why the men were set free was because of the manner in which certain questions were posed by the prosecutor.
“Personally, I think it was how the case was handled why these guys actually beat it. I was in court listening to the case and heard the prosecutor asking certain questions. He would ask one question and then try to change it in different ways, and I felt he didn’t do enough to win the case. They may have had the right guys but the prosecutor did not do enough to win the case.”
Andre stressed that after so many years he thought there would been a closure on the case surrounding his father’s death.
“My father has been dead for so many years and we can’t get any closure now that these guys have walked. I don’t know what is going to happen from here but I heard that an appeal is in the works.”
At about 7:30 a.m. on June 24, 2005, Phipps’ lifeless, bloodied and bound body was discovered in his Wades Garden home and an autopsy later revealed that he died as a result of suffocation.
Some four years after, Devon ‘Patches’ Fyfield of Wades Garden and Amal Whyte of Trafalgar Village were arrested and charged with the businessman’s murder.
However, on Monday (Nov. 3), the two accused, after being incarcerated at Her Majesty’s Prison for some 62 months, appeared before Justice Justice Marlene Carter at the Basseterre High Court and were set free.
Whyte was represented by Dr. Henry Browne and Marha Henderson while Hesketh Benjamin and Narissa Hobson appeared for Fyfield.
According to Benjamin, after all the evidence was presented, Dr. Henry Browne made a no case submission for Whyte and he did likewise for his client.
Explaining what transpired in the High Court, Benjamin said: The case involved considerable DNA evidence, fibre evidence and so on. In the final analysis however, there was no findings that these two men were tainted to the extent that a judge having to address a jury in a proper, legal and factual approach to the matter.
“She was of the view that no jury could have returned a guilty verdict. So, she analysed the case from the factual standpoint, she analysed the case from the legal standpoint, from the medical standpoint and the expertise standpoint, and she actually requested the clerk to address the jury in terms of returning a not guilty verdict on both sides. She found in both limbs that there was a no case.”
